Climate Diplomacy Workshop: What Approaches for Less Developed Countries?
Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, October 2 – The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Government of Burkina Faso held the Global Green Growth Week (GGGWeek2018) on October 2-4 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The first session took place on Tuesday, October 2 and was on Climate Diplomacy. The opening ceremony was co-chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Mallé Fofana, GGGI’s Senior Officer. It was moderated by Dr. Anna Schulz, GGGI’s Climate Diplomacy Specialist.
The session was attended by more than 40 participants. The primary objective was to strengthen the capacity of Burkina Faso to effectively advance its position in the UNFCCC negotiations; and to more closely align GGGI’s in-country activities towards achieving the Least Developed Country (LDC) Group’s ambitions under the Paris Agreement.
The value added of this work was to assist Burkina Faso to engage in international processes in ways they currently lack the capacity to do. This session helped to develop and effectively implement the Paris Agreement Work Program while ensuring national priorities, perspectives, and capacity building needs are sufficiently addressed.
This session provided guidance to support the delegation for the next Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Katowice (Poland). Thus, the focus was on the following aspects:
- Introduce the specialized knowledge and skills needed to address these challenges;
- Strengthen capacity for effective participation and engagement in international decision-making;
- Share best practices or specialized knowledge on specific interactive diplomatic session exercises like negotiation simulations or case studies;
- Encourage networking between entities to improve the quality of negotiation; and
- Reinforce the capacity of key stakeholders and diplomats on climate diplomacy processes and requirements.